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| Opinion |
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by
Editor, 31 January 2007
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13:04:08
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Media committee could do better
Is the Parliamentary Committee on the Media so helpless that the only intervention it can make in relation to protests by the National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) is to advise the watchdog to organise demonstrations? If so, then Malawi’s problems in growing its democracy are worse than ever imagined.
One would have thought Namisa did the right thing to raise its concerns to the media committee and that meaningful interventions were going to follow, leading to some form of redress in the matter. As it turned out yesterday, the committee is not in a position to assist the public media houses and, by extension, the country’s democracy.
When one remembers that it is the same committee that sat by as the House resolved to halve funding for Malawi Television (TVM) and Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and later demanded resources to start monitoring the two media houses, the naivety ruling in the committee becomes scaringly obvious.
The issue before the committee was the hiring of bosses at the two media houses which has a huge impact on their performance. One would have expected the legislators to take up the issue, do their investigations and bring the matter to the House for some action.
If the committee cannot take up the issues raised by Namisa, or go beyond noting that MBC and TVM are still falling short of becoming truly national broadcasters, why is it there? To meet, cry on our behalf and get allowances at the end of the day? Have they not seen the impact other committees of the same House are making?
Situations like this one call for careful assessment of the performance of Parliament and its committees. There are lots of other issues, including the proposed Access to Information legislation and the dysfunctional Communications Act, which the media would have loved the committee to act on but nothing has been forthcoming.
Committees which have achieved nothing since they were formed need to be exposed for what they are. The media committee will be lucky to get any vote of support. It is a huge let down to the media fraternity, the House and the nation. |
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